A Plan, A Deal, A Difficult Decision

On Tuesday night, after months of screaming and squabbling Community Board 1 members cast their final votes on the Broadway Triangle rezoning plan put forth by HPD, approving the plan. The residential rezoning of the previously industrial Broadway Triangle, a 31-acre site that conjoins the neighborhoods of Williamsburg, Bushwick and Bed-Stuy is perhaps the most contentious issue on the CB1 table, pitting community groups against each other for control over the affordable housing stock the rezoning will yield.
The meeting featured two short presentations, on the heels of last month’s ULURP meeting during which HPD presented their plan in detail. Brand new CB1 Chair Chris Olechowski granted both the Broadway Triangle Community Coalition and the Broadway Triangle Task Force—a coalition of supporters of HPD’s proposal—five minutes to present. El Puente Executive Director Luis Garden Acosta and Pratt Institute Center for Community and Environmental Developers presented the BTCC alternative plan that includes 15-story high-density environmentally sustainable building complexes, to include 4,800 units of housing, as opposed to HPD’s contextual rezoning, which will result in approximately 900.
The grueling four-hour meeting was riddled with subtext. Community Board members were expected to simply vote yes or no on the HPD plan in question—as the plan had already been scrutinized by the ULURP committee—but instead, board members sympathetic to the BTCC, who oppose the city’s current plan because of what they call a closed planning process, or to UJO and Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council (RBSCC), who will be the primary executors of the plan, launched into hours of questions, accusations and arguments before allowing the vote to be called.
“It isn’t about affordable housing, it’s about Democratic politics. We don’t want you to think about this plan as the end all and be all; what we are most committed to is good government practice of openness and communication,” Acosta said, addressing the board. “We want to have a plan that includes all of you. We aren’t asking you to vote on the plan, we are asking you to vote on your mission. You are the guardians. If you allow vested interests to step between you and your office, and your mission, then we don’t have a community that will provide its own future.”
Shiffman continued, “We want a plan that addresses what kind of affordable housing will be built, and where it will go.” He said. “Higher density, provide for open space. We hope to work with you to flesh it out because we know it’s affordable and we know it can be done.”
The final vote—23-12—and the resulting passage of HPD’s plan on to the Borough President’s office, was a truly divisive decision, leaving half of the room cheering and the other half up in arms.
“This was a politically-driven proposal, we never had a voice,” said Juan Ramos, a board member of Churches United for Fair Housing. “This was a terrible process. Congratulations, community board, for silencing your own community.”
Maintaining his cool, Churches United for Fair Housing board member Rob Solano chimed in, explaining that “it’s not just buildings and shadows, it’s people with blood and skin. When we see the Broadway Triangle, we see a bigger plan, something better for the community. Now we feel like we’ve lost some type of hope.”
Four members of the community board, including Rabbi David Neiderman, President of United Jewish Organizations (UJO)—one of the organizations contracted to develop the Broadway Triangle site—and Simon Weiser, a former UJO member recused themselves from the vote, after much discussion and debate.
Ward Dennis, chair of the ULURP committee who cast the deciding vote to pass the HPD plan on to a full-board vote—with provisions—explained that though the process may have been unfair, the role of the community board was to vote based on the merits of the proposal at hand and not the process by which that plan was compiled.
“I voted on what I thought was the best zoning for those blocks,” said Dennis. “The process itself, as I said and others said, was flawed on so many different levels that it’s hard to untangle. There are a lot of legitimate gripes, but there are also a lot of political issues at play about who gets a piece of the pie, and it’s not appropriate for the board to have to settle those issues. This plan is for a responsible, level development—it’s sustainable and it’s doable.”
The plans will now be presented to the Borough President’s office for a vote, before going before City Council. And though the fate of the Triangle no longer lies in the hands of the Greenpoint/Williamsburg community, the fight is far from over.
“This is not the end of the fight, it’s just the beginning,” said Marty Needelman, director of Brooklyn Legal Services A and an outspoken opponent of HDP’s plan who has dedicated a great deal of time and energy into helping developing an alternative. “The board members who voted yes sold their souls to a corrupt deal.” But he didn’t seem too worried. “Broadway Triangle: to be continued.”